Category: Which Decade 2009

Yes, folks: after seven years of judicious voting and meticulous tabulation, which have seen us examine 362 different singles from 37 different singles charts (allowing for a couple of tie-break rounds), I can now reveal the ULTIMATE answer to the question which I first posed to my readers in February 2003.

In fifth place, with a cumulative score of 172 points, it’s The 1990s.

Never finishing higher than fourth place at the end of our seven annual “Which Decade” episodes, The 1990s have endured a rough ride. In 70 rounds of voting, our least popular decade has placed first on just eight occasions – a pitiful showing indeed. Let’s list them again, shall we?

And in fourth place, with a cumulative score of 196 points, it’s The 2000s.

The Noughties stiffed badly between 2003 and 2006, before rallying towards the end of the decade, and peaking in second place for the chart of 2007. Here are those 2000s winners in full (and with the benefit of hindsight, some of them are strange choices indeed).

Now, here’s a surprise: just like the 1990s, the 2000s only managed to notch up 8 winners out of 70. Instead, the mid-table was their natural stamping ground – placing them 24 points clear of fifth place, but a mere 15 points short of third place.

And in third place, with a cumulative score of 211 points, it’s The 1980s.

The Eighties finished on top in just one annual round, and in the most unlikely year of all: 1985, which I have long considered to be one of the worst years in singles chart history. Its least popular year – and again, this comes as a surprise – was the fifth placing for 1988 in last year’s contest. So, which Eighties records came out on top? Let’s list them…

Yes, that’s still just 12 winning songs out of 70 – meaning that our two most popular decades have notched up 42 winning songs between them. Decisive, or what?

There’s a big jump in the scoring between our third and second placed decades – but most nail-bitingly of all, a mere 4 points separate the winner from the runner-up.

So, who’s in second place? Why, it’s The 1970s, with a cumulative score of 235 points.

The Seventies won two annual rounds – but only 1976 enjoyed a clear, outright victory. On two other occasions, the Seventies were forced to go to a supplementary tie-break round. Last year, 1978 lost out to our winning decade on tie-break – but their luck was better in Year One, when they beat off a challenge from the 1980s. And the 19 winning songs were:

And so to the decade which you, the readers of Troubled Diva, have judged to be the BEST! DECADE! EVAH! for pop music. Four points ahead of the 1970s, with a cumulative score of 239, it’s…

THE SWINGING, THE FABULOUS, THE TOPPER-MOST, POPPER-MOST… NINETEEN SIXTIES!

The 1960s were the first-placed decade in four of our seven annual rounds, with three consecutive victories in the last three years. 1963 might have scored a comparatively low third place in Year One – but since then, it’s been Top Two all the way. Over and over again, your votes have confirmed the increasingly inevitable: that the music of forty years ago will always be dearest to your pop-loving hearts.

Looking at the final scores once again, there’s another clear conclusion to be drawn: that the quality of chart pop music steadily deteriorated from the Sixties to the Nineties, before rallying slightly in the Noughties. Can this be true? Is popular culture forever destined to be on a downward slide – or are there glory days yet to come?

There’s only one way to find out – but it might take us another ten years to draw our next set of conclusions. So the question is this: have I got in me to reset the counters to zero, and to start the exercise all over again next year, with six decades instead of five to evaluate?

And the answer is this: maybe. Let’s see how I feel in a year’s time, eh? And if “Which Decade” is indeed to be reborn, then I’ll have to move from my birthday week in mid-February to another month. Maybe I’ll pick K’s birthday week, in late May?

For the sake of completeness, and as these were never voted on at the time, let’s take a quick peek at the Top Threes from the first three years of each decade.

First up, here are the top threes from 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000. I’m going to highlight my favourites in green.

Number Threes:Freddie Cannon – Way Down Yonder In New OrleansCanned Heat – Let’s Work TogetherThe Whispers – And The Beat Goes OnBeats International featuring Lindy Layton – Dub Be Good To MeOasis – Go Let It Out

If you ask me, there’s something special about years ending in 9. In pop-historical terms, they’re habitually overlooked, most likely because they tend not to fit neatly into decade-based summaries. By the time that you get to them, the overall “sound” of each decade has already been identified – and it’s usually centred around the music from a quarter of the way through (Merseybeat, Glam, New Pop, Rave/Grunge), or the three-quarter point (Psychedelia, Punk/Disco, House/SAW, Britpop/the “superclub” Dance boom).

But in those years-with-a-nine-on-the-end, you’ll often find clear pointers to the music which will go on to define the decade to come. In 1979, we see the dawn of the more heavily image-based video era. In 1989, Madchester is the big story: placing indie guitar bands back into the equation, and setting in motion the chain of events which would lead to Britpop. Even in 1999, we can find the roots of pure pop’s resurgence: your Britneys, your Christinas, your S Clubs.

But what of 1969? Ah, I wish you hadn’t asked me that – for this is where my already shaky theory starts to fall apart. The Beatles, The Stones and The Who were still riding high; Marmalade, The Move, Amen Corner and Herman’s Hermits represented business as usual for home-grown pop; and while Motown provided many of the year’s most durable classics – three of which are represented here, although we’re stretching the term “classic” for one of them – the label’s success was largely founded on re-issues, and its new hits offered few clues to the direction that soul music would take in the 1970s.

Look at those day-by-day scores, and you’ll see what I mean. For in 1969, there were no half measures where your voting was concerned. Six songs won outright, four songs placed last – and there was nothing – absolutely nothing – in between.

Yes, you loved your Motown – and rightly so. And there’s no arguing with the unique “Albatross”, or with the wonky psych-pop of “Blackberry Way”. But did the chart which contained the out-of-time Donald Peers, the perpetually irksome Engelbert Humperdinck, the utterly forgettable “You Got Soul” (bet you’d forgotten it already, right?) or the laboured ho-hummery of Amen Corner really deserve this year’s crown?

Or am I just pissed off because my beloved 1979 was pipped at the post, by one measly little point?

Ah, there’s the rub. 1969, I congratulate you – but this time, it’s through gritted teeth.

Over the course of “Which Decade”, we’ve examined the charts of thirty-five different years. And of these thirty-five, the single year that I’ve been looking forward to the most is this one: the golden, glorious year of 1979.

For my money, the singles charts of the final year of the Seventies have never been bettered – and as if to illustrate the point, this was also a high-water mark for the 7-inch single, with UK sales for 1979 peaking at a whopping 89 million.

Not only had pop music never been more popular; it had also never been so creative, with any of number of acts rising from the underground to the mainstream without compromising their vision. The new wave reached maturity (Oliver’s Army, Eton Rifles, Heart Of Glass), the first ripples of synth-pop began to erupt (Are ‘Friends’ Electric, Pop Muzik, Video Killed The Radio Star), disco reached its commercial peak (Good Times, We Are Family, Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now), while the autumn of 1979 saw the 2-Tone movement blowing up from nowhere, and rap music scoring its first hit single. And was there ever a finer selection of UK Number Ones? Oh, I very much doubt it.

That said, I remained nervous about the quality of this particular Top Ten, which I felt didn’t quite show 1979 in the best possible light. Driver 67? The Shadows? Leif Garrett? One of my least favourite Abba songs? “Woman In Love”? This could be a tough one.

I needn’t have worried. The Feelgoods, The Blockheads and Blondie won their respective rounds; “Chiquitita” proved more popular than I had expected; Edwin Starr and The Bee Gees did just fine; and only The Shadows found themselves settling for bottom place. And in the final reckoning, 1979 finished just one point short of winning the match.

In personal terms, February 1979 – and specifically the night of my 17th birthday – marked the moment when I began to turn the corner on a particularly nasty and debilitating bout of teenage angst. Six months earlier, I had been isolated, friendless and deeply f**ked up. But now – with A-levels approaching, and the prospect of independence and escape looming ever larger on the horizon – I somehow found the strength and resolve to begin a conscious process of re-invention.

If I were ranking these five years in terms of personal growth, then 1979 would definitely come out on top. And if I were undemocratically ranking them in terms of their pop music, then the result would be the same. As it is, I’ll have to settle for second-best placing, for an altogether first-rate year.

You don’t exactly love 2009: none of this year’s Top Ten polled higher than second place, although Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘n’ Nite” led the voting in the Number Nines for most of the way. And you certainly don’t loathe 2009: nothing polled in last place, although none of you had anything very nice to say about James Morrison’s “Broken Strings”. And again, the luck of the draw played its part: many of you expressed frustration at not being able to place Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” higher, and Lily Allen’s “The Fear” drew almost unanimous praise, despite being soundly trounced by Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass”.

It’s been heartening to see the once-reviled 2000s doing so well in recent years, compared to its dismal showing from 2003 to 2006. As regular readers will know, I’m strongly in favour of giving all due weight to the contemporary, despite its in-built disadvantage of being untested by posterity. And this was a good crop, from what has been a strong year for pop hits (but a slow year for equally strong albums, it has to be said).

As for my own personal experience of 2009: it’s been a busy, exciting and energising first three months, with plenty of challenging and satisfying projects already completed, and still more to come. A natural progression from the equally engaged optimism of 1989, with the mid-life misery of 1999 looking all the more like a distant blip of misfortune, poor judgement and self-defeating self-indulgence.

If I were ranking these five years in terms of personal achievement, then 2009 would definitely come out on top. But a closely fought third place on “Which Decade”? Well, that ain’t too shoddy.

With 1999 safely out of the way, this year’s competition gets a lot closer, with little to separate our remaining four decades. And having watched the Eighties slide ever lower down the rankings in recent years, I nursed high hopes that 1989 would reverse their fortunes.

For a while, things were looking promising. Howard/Mazelle, Morrissey, Roy Orbison and Holly Johnson all finished in second place, and 1989 even led the pack at the end of a couple of rounds. But then disaster followed, in the shape of a weak Top Four and two consecutive bottom placings for Michael Ball and Simple Minds.

Although Marc Almond and Gene Pitney drew favourable comments from most quarters, a tough draw left them stranded in third place. It was the final nail in 1989’s coffin – and a disappointing placing for a period which I have always held in high regard.

Maybe it’s just the distorting lens of nostalgia, but my memories of the 1989 charts are largely fond ones. From the UK pop/soul corner, we had Neneh Cherry, Soul II Soul, Fine Young Cannibals, Rebel MC… and yes, even Lisa Stansfield for a while, back when she still seemed like a good idea. From the US, we had quality house music from Adeva, Chanelle, Ten City, Inner City and Lil Louis, and ground-breaking hip hop from De La Soul. Madonna restored her artistic reputation with Like A Prayer, Bobby Brown and Alyson Williams brought a modern edge to R&B; the Pet Shop Boys collaborated with Dusty and Liza; there was some ace Euro-dance from Technotronic, Capella and the Italo-house brigade (led by Black Box’s “Ride On Time” and Starlight’s “Numero Uno”); “Voodoo Ray” and “Pacific State” put Manchester on the dance map, while the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays ushered in the Madchester/baggy boom… such riches, people! Such riches!

On a global level, 1989 marked a historical turning point, with the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War. And on a personal level, these were significant times. K started a job which involved extensive international travel, and I was promoted into a role with dramatically increased responsibilities. The travel seemed glamorous and exciting, the promotion felt like an honour… and ignorance was bliss, on both counts. The DJ-ing had gone weekly, the night was doing great, and the social life hadn’t been this busy since student days. If I were ranking these five years in terms of personal happiness, then 1989 would probably come out top. But never mind. Fourth position will have to do.